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NAACP Puts Voter ID Laws in Crosshairs
Regardless of the content of their addresses Monday morning at the annual “King Day at the Dome” rally at the State House in Columbia, S.C., the joint appearance of NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder speaks volumes in and of itself. Monday marks the first time Holder will have been…
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And Still Sharpton Rises
Back in August, as the Rev. Al Sharpton began his hosting duties on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation, the first gig there for an African American who wasn’t a journalist, a reader at the Huffington Post asked what many in the media (and elsewhere) probably asked themselves: “What is the over-under on this guy’s hosting job lasting a…
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The Epidemic of Police Brutality
It’s a modern article of American faith: Metropolitan police departments have a history of conflict with their cities’ minority citizens, conflicts that suggest police agencies trade evenhanded justice for heavy-handed contact with the public. In the recent past, police departments in Los Angeles, New York City and New Orleans have been taken to task for…
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Can a Name Change for Rhode Island Heal Old Wounds?
By Michael E. Ross Next Tuesday, Rhode Island voters will decide whether to shorten the state’s official name from “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations” to “State of Rhode Island,” out of a desire by some citizens’ groups and state lawmakers to erase from its formal name what they see as a blemish. Unlike…
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Jay Pharoah, and Beyond, at SNL
When the Virginia comedian Jared “Jay Pharoah” Farrow made his debut on NBC’s long-running Saturday Night Live last week, he joined the cast of broadcast TV’s most enduring comedy franchise. Now in its 36th season, SNL is as much a brand as it is a TV show, one that has helped break in any number…
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Seattle: The Punch, the Past and the Connection
For the past week, courtesy of a video on YouTube, it’s been the punch thrown ’round the world: On June 14, during an arrest for jaywalking and a fracas that resulted from that arrest, a Seattle police officer punched a teenager in the face after she shoved the officer while being arrested. The teenager who…
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The Root Interview: Charles Johnson
Charles Johnson walks into the Faire Gallery & Café on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, deceptively low-key for one of America’s pre-eminent men of letters. At the cozy café, owned by his daughter, Elisheba, Johnson asks for “my usual,” a large cup of coffee with two Splendas. It’s a good place from which to look at his…
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Color-Struck Covers
The word “whitewash” is rarely considered in a literary context, but Bloomsbury Children’s Books recently got an earful of the word. The publishing company made an unwise decision to publish the novel Liar, a story about a black woman, with a cover portraying a lily-white woman. As Felicia Pride of The Root noted on her…
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Jada Hits Primetime
The hospital drama is a staple in the pantry of prime-time television, and recent events in Washington to restructure the nation’s health care system could prolong the subgenre’s shelf life. The latest entry, Hawthorne, which debuted this week on TNT, begins in the midst of real-life health emergency, as President Obama advances a plan to…
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Why Are Black Folks Leaving San Francisco?
“San Francisco is beautiful. You shouldn’t have to be upper-middle class to be a part of that.” —Micah in Medicine for Melancholy In April 1858, perhaps as many as 700 black settlers—about 14 percent of the blacks then living in California—began an exodus from San Francisco to Victoria, British Columbia, 750 miles north, in a…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
